This listing shows posts that went onto AustCrimeFiction.org in the last 14 days. Sorted into post type groups - Blogs (Updates), Books, Reviews.
Eighth Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL', with this month the subtitle of What Happens When You Can't Even Remember to do a Plan....
As always - the last fortnight entries and The Next Up Reading List in full.
Miles Franklin-award winner Melissa Lucashenko's searing essays and journalism published together for the first time.
'For thousands of years, global narratives have had, as their explicit task, the expansion of the human heart.'
Melissa Lucashenko is one of our most admired and awarded novelists. She is renowned for writing about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead.
Suburbia can be murder … especially with a neighbour like Rose …
Sydney, 1961
When Bob Clifton witnesses a disturbing event in a block of flats near his home, everyone tells him he must be imagining things.
But Bob can’t ignore his suspicion that he’s witnessed a murder, and there’s one man he knows will listen to him: his friend, Detective Inspector Herbert Swinton.
He doesn’t speak a word of French — but the language of murder is spoken everywhere…
Provence, 1960
When a chance meeting in Provence leads Detective Inspector Herbert Swinton to the strange vineyard home of eccentric Pearl Langham – and her even stranger assortment of guests – his much-needed break looks set to turn into a busman’s holiday.
Stranded with the housemates from hell and missing his Sydney home — and his beloved cold meat pies — he plots an early exit.
A killer is stalking the suburbs of Western Australia. Two teenage girls hell-bent on revenge take matters into their own hands, with deadly results. Another dark, uniquely voice-led crime thriller from Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize-winner Emma Styles.
Every monster has a weakness.
At the height of Australian summer, a serial killer dubbed The Shark stalks a beachside suburb, targeting young female swimmers whose bodies are later found on the shoreline.
Rena and Tom have been planning this trip for years: just the two of them, retired, setting out into remote bush country to enjoy nature's dramatic beauty--and each other's company. When Tom dies unexpectedly just before they are to depart, Rena almost cancels, but there's nothing left at home but painful memories. She hits the road in her kitted-out truck, vowing to follow the itinerary she and Tom had mapped, hoping the trip will at least distract her from her devastating loss.
Things have not been going well for Zoe Ann Weiss. Once a young novelist full of promise, now she has a failed debut under her belt, a mountain of debt, a dead-end job, and an agent who's about to drop her if she doesn't write something new and brilliant soon.
When a ravaged body is discovered on a building site in Bristol, the first job is to identify who it is. Luckily, DS George Cross is known for spotting clues that others miss.
George needs a name to stand any chance of solving the murder, and while the man's identity remains a mystery, a picture is emerging. Faint tan lines and scars on the forearms reveal he was an amateur cyclist who used performance-enhancing drugs.
This man was ambitious, someone desperate to win – but at what cost?
When a weather-beaten body is found on Clifton Downs, the police are quick to dismiss it as a quarrel among the unhoused community.
George Cross is a detective with experience of being overlooked. Unwilling to do the same to others, he sets out to find out what really happened to the dead man.
As George learns about a life that slowly unravelled, his investigation leads him to a decades-old murder. The question is how are the two deaths linked – and who killed each victim?
Two bodies are discovered in a Stockholm park, one a policeman and the other an unidentified young woman. With the police believing the woman to be nothing more than unfortunate collateral damage, they focus on the murder of the police officer. But Detective Vanessa Frank takes a different approach and her investigation turns out to be more personal than she could have imagined.
A sinister hidden room.
A dead space between two walls.
A sealed cellar.
A child's face glimpsed at a window.
Every house hides secrets.
But some secrets are far darker than others.
More than a million readers have discovered the terrible truth behind these strange houses.
Now it's your turn.
An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance. . . .
A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.
A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message.
A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbithole that will reveal a horrifying reality.
There used to be a cafe called Mon Cheri at Nishi Waseda where members of the Waseda Mystery Club spent day after day frothing in excitement over the latest mystery novels, and now he and Kaede solve mysteries together . . .
Includes a Cluefinder where you can check the clues you spotted - and missed - along the way.
Can you find the clues and solve the murder first?
Six people with links to the world of crime writing have been invited to play a game this Christmas by the mysterious Midwinter Trust.
Solve the murder of a fictional crime writer in a remote village in north Yorkshire and win a life-changing prize.
In a tense return to the Bloodstorm series, past choices come back to haunt those who were wronged—and the ever-blurring lines between good and evil make them question what is right.
Kim Ribbing is a peculiar man—a skilled hacker, but otherwise reticent and fiercely private. Crime writer Julia Malmros never expected more than a working relationship with him, but all that changed the moment they locked eyes. Now there’s something between them just as thrilling as the mysteries they investigate together.
And just as dangerous too.
In this sweeping and suspenseful start to the Bloodstorm series, an ex-cop turned crime writer teams up with a mysterious hacker to solve a murder—and uncovers corruption along the way.
Julia Malmros is thriving. A former police officer making her way in the world of crime fiction, she’s turning popularity into fame by writing the next book in a world-renowned suspense series.
Linköping's top detective, Malin Fors, is about to take on a case that's a little too close for comfort. Her daughter has just discovered a dead body. It is that of a 79-year-old resident at the nursing home where she works. He's been hung by his own alarm cord.
At first it looks like a cut and dry suicide. But when the autopsy suggests foul play, Malin probes deeper and uncovers rumours about the home's mismanagement its greedy millionaire owner. Was it a mercy killing, or was someone trying to silence the victim?
When a body is hauled from the River Tyne, Sarah Tucker heads to Newcastle for a closer look. She identifies the dead woman, but putting a name to the corpse only raises further questions. Did the woman kill herself? Why was she wearing the jacket a murderer had stolen years before? And what's brought Sarah's former sparring partner Gerard Inchon to the same broken-down hotel where she's staying?
Coincidence is an excuse that soon appears pretty unconvincing. Sarah can't leave until she's found the answers to her questions, however dangerous they might turn out to be.
Melissa Sanderson is the perfect wife and mother. She dotes on her daughter, and lives in her dream home in a quiet cul-de-sac in the suburbs.
But looks can be deceiving.
Something is amiss in that house – all the neighbours think so. Some say Melissa is having an affair. Others say she’s been drinking too much.
Then one night, sirens wake up the whole neighbourhood.
Melissa Sanderson is dead.
The girl stared unseeing up to the blue sky. Her mouth was open, as if she was about to speak, to cry for help… but her voice had been silenced forever.
When Detective Kim Stone and her team are sent to Westerley, a forensic research facility, they discover the body of a young woman, her mouth filled with soil. But she doesn’t belong there. It seems a killer has discovered the perfect cover for their crime.
Two girls go missing. Only one will return.
The couple that offers the highest amount will see their daughter again. The losing couple will not. Make no mistake. One child will die.
When nine-year-old best friends Charlie and Amy disappear, two families are plunged into a living nightmare. A text message confirms the unthinkable: that the girls are the victims of a terrifying kidnapping.
What would it take to turn you into a killer?
Detective Sergeant Kiara Lui has just broken up a loud brawl between two blokes in front of the Warrigal Public Library. But just as she's about to leave the scene, a man inexplicably plummets from the sky and slams into the bike rack right in front of her, dead.
This collection of 25 Hercule Poirot adventures by Agatha Christie are compiled from short stories written for The Sketch magazine from March to December 1923. Hercule Poirot delighted in telling people that he was probably the best detective in the world. So turning back the clock to trace eighteen of the cases which helped establish his professional reputation was always going to be a fascinating experience. With his career still in its formative years, the panache with which Hercule Poirot could solve even the most puzzling mystery is obvious.
In the last newsletter I mentioned that predictability is overrated. I think this time around I should note that MtTBR induced panic is, on the other hand, misunderstood, and underestimated. I have a ridiculously bad case of it. Doesn't seem to matter HOW many books I get through in a month, there are always more - just sitting there with there looking all tempting and fascinating, and I don't know how I'm supposed to keep up. It's probably not normal but I do fantasise about breaking a leg.. at least then I could claim infirmity and stay in one place, surrounded by books, coffee, dogs, cats and the occasional gin. Nobody else around here would be thrilled but I'd be beyond relieved.